Tell me moreChristopher ‘Dark Knight’ Nolan has directed box-office smashes and sends geeks’ pulses racing, but he’s never gone home with an Oscar. If anything can change that, it will be this hotly anticipated space epic, with Matthew McConaughey leading a starry cast into space on a mission to save Earth.

Tell me moreThe Oscars love a comeback (let’s call it ‘doing a Travolta’). So we’ll eat a dead bat if Michael Keaton doesn’t get a nomination for his career-reviving performance as a washed-up-actor in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s brilliant and bonkers showbiz satire set in New York. Behind the camera, Iñárritu is a dead cert for a Best Director nod.

What could it win?Best Actor, Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (Emma Stone) Best Supporting Actor (Edward Norton), Best Original Screenplay.

Tell me moreCould we be looking at a husband and wife Brangelina slam-dunk on Oscar night? There’s Angie directing one WWII epic, ‘Unbroken’. Then you’ve got Brad producing and starring in this old-school war drama as an army sergeant on a mission behind enemy lines in Nazi Germany.

Tell me moreNo-one has seen ‘Unbroken’, but on paper this looks like a winner. Hollywood royalty Angelina Jolie directs the extraordinary real-life story of Louis Zamperini (Jack O’Connell), the Olympic runner and WWII hero, who survived at sea for 47 days after escaping Japanese torture. That’s one juicy-looking piece of Oscar bait.

Tell me moreSteve Carell does Capital A acting as John du Pont, the wealthy American millionaire who murdered an Olympic wrestler in 1996. Filmmaker Bennett Miller directed Philip Seymour Hoffman to an Oscar-winning performance in ‘Capote’. Will he score gold again?

Tell me moreCould Tim Burton’s divorce drama be the film that finally gives serial Oscar nominee Amy Adams (five nods and counting) an Oscar win? She plays the real-life artist Margaret Keane whose husband took the credit for her kitschy paintings of big-eyed girls in the 1960s. When the couple divorced the judge settled the case with a paint-off, setting up two easels in the courtroom.

Tell me moreIf you’ve already seen American indie filmmaker Richard Linklater’s gorgeous film about one boy growing up, filmed in spurts over 12 years, you’ll know exactly why it deserves to be in the running for Best Picture. We’d love ‘Boyhood’ to be this year’s little-film-that-could.

Tell me moreCould we be looking at an (exceedingly polite) Oscar smackdown between two classy Brit biopics this year? Going elbow to elbow with Benedict Cumberbatch and ‘The Imitation Game’ is this film largely about the student years and early career of Stephen Hawking adapted from his ex wife’s autobiography. The trailer is enough to reduce the quivery-lipped to tears and 32-year-old actor Eddie Redmayne’s performance is being described as Daniel-Day-Lewis-style brilliant.

Tell me moreLast year we had the McConaissance, as Hollywood fell back in love with Matthew McConaughey. This year is all about the Witherspaissance, as all eyes turn to Reese Witherspoon who delivers a stand-out performance in the film of Cheryl Strayed’s gritty memoir.

Tell me moreJake Gyllenhaal’s performance as a seedy ambulance-chasing cameraman in the cesspool of Los Angeles crime reporting has had people reaching for comparisons to Robert De Niro in ‘Taxi Driver’.

Tell me moreJulianne Moore is now officially the woman to beat in the race to Best Actress. She gives a career-best performance (and that’s saying something for Moore) playing a happily married 50-year-old academic diagnosed with early-onset dementia. Kristen Stewart could also find herself in the running for Best Supporting Actress as her daughter.

Tell me moreThis hotly tipped crime drama from rising-star writer-director J C Chandor (‘Margin Call’, ‘All is Lost’) might turn out to be a dark horse Oscar candidate. Set in 1981, one of the most violent years in modern New York history, Oscar Isaac plays an immigrant expanding his business by any means necessary. Jessica Chastain does a Lady Macbeth as his scheming wife.

What could it win?Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Jessica Chastain).

Tell me moreThere’s no doubting David Fincher’s first-class directing. But is his blackly funny film of Gillian Flynn’s dazzling novel about a marriage gone toxic too twisted to win big at the Oscars? That’s the question hanging over ‘Gone Girl’.

Tell me moreMike Leigh has notched up six Oscar nominations in his long and distinguished career. But he may well finally trouser a little golden statue with ‘Mr Turner’, his outstanding biopic of the final years of the nineteenth-century painter JMW Turner. This is a film that ticks a lot of Oscar boxes. Classy historical drama. Top drawer British cast. Biopic. Check. Check. Check.

Comments

The Oscars are headed our way this Sunday, February 22, so it's time to make any last minute changes to your Oscar bets before settling in for a night of high fashion and lots of predictable winners thrilling competition. So, who will take home the prize in the top categories? We've got our final predictions right here.

The Oscars are often dull and predictable, but not this year. The races for best picture and best actor are so close, and so hard to figure out, that viewers are likely to keep watching until the last award is given out. Any one of four contenders could win the biggest prize, and there are political implications that could make for controversy and big ratings. An artsy duel between "Boyhood" and "Birdman" has been shaken up by late movement toward "The Imitation Game" and "American Sniper," movies that didn't seem to have a chance a few weeks ago. If ABC is smart, it'll keep a camera on Clint Eastwood at all times. You never know what the old guy might do if "American Sniper" wins, or loses.